Toshiba, Fujitsu and Vaio could merge their PC divisions

The PC business as we know it is dying, and whenever an industry reaches this point in its life, it has to team up with the other survivors to avoid oblivion. To that end, Nikkei Asian Review believes that Toshiba, Fujitsu and Vaio, Sony's spun out computing division, are considering merging their PC divisions together. The move would create a desktop, laptop and tablet-manufacturing supergroup that controlled more than 30 percent of Japan's market -- making it bigger than Lenovo, the current local champion. The paper believes that Vaio would be the name that survives, absorbing its rivals into its existing operations.

The marriage seems like one where all parties are happy since each company has a strength its rivals do not. Toshiba, for instance, has a large presence in North America, while Fujitsu can boast about its pull over in Europe. Vaio, meanwhile, retains the strength of the Sony brand despite being spun-out from its parent at the start of 2014. By pooling their resources, the new firm should also be able to save a pile of cash on manufacturing that'll help it produce more machines for less money than it can do so now. That's going to be important, because none of the three companies are currently in the top five PC makers worldwide. By clubbing together, however, their combined strength could be enough to take down some of the lower-placed entrants like Asus and Acer.